


sleeping giants.

by tenderthings



Category: Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - Reincarnation, Angst, Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, F/M, Non-Graphic Smut, Past Character Death, Past Lavellan/Solas
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-07-30
Updated: 2016-07-30
Packaged: 2018-07-27 15:35:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 8,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7624225
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tenderthings/pseuds/tenderthings
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>She’s always there, amongst the blossoms.</p>
<p>(in which the world is reborn, the worst has come to pass, and the dread wolf stays forgotten.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	sleeping giants.

**Author's Note:**

> Originally a fill for the prompt: “i’m a immortal who just woke up from a ‘nap’ what the fuck is this what the fuck is that au” from: [(x) ](http://elfapostate.tumblr.com/post/115818127100/xaquaangelx-more-aus-im-a-immortal-who-just) but the story grew out of it.
> 
> Also, I’ve been working on this on and off for so long, I’m so done and so dead. Enjoy !!! Critiques are welcome !!!
> 
> [Posted on my tumblr: [(x) ](http://elfapostate.tumblr.com/post/148180018220/sleeping-giants-solasflavellan) ]

 

* * *

  

when i’m down on my knees, i think  
of all we were.  
how it ached  
the first time i set my teeth against yours,  
my craven heart in the mouth of a wolf.  
my tongue covered in blisters;  
fire cooling in my throat  
followed  
by the realization that  
i liked the poison because it came from you.”

—[hunger](http://cloudsanctum.tumblr.com/post/148120894796/when-im-down-on-my-knees-i-think-of-all-we) // mm

 

* * *

 

  
i.

  
The new world proves to be a cold one.

It is all metal and noise, distorted and wrapped around a neon heart. Beating, yes, and alive, but cold.

(Footsteps, thrumming in his ears and he thinks of war drums, he thinks of armies, he thinks of bodies. All gone. All dust—)

People move in droves, constant; the never sleeping blood-flow of an automatic beast. New machinery is strung across every neck in lieu of nooses and the children know nothing of the forest, of the People and their gods. Thedas is not Thedas anymore.

Kirkwall is not Kirkwall anymore but, at least, the name has remained.

He lifts his head and breathes in deep.

The air still tastes like winter.

 

ii.

  
In the body of a black dog, he walks. At this late hour, the streets are near empty and a dog like him is merely a ghost, no different from the other strays.

He manages to pass a couple, young and vibrant, drunk and laughing as they support each other. They are oblivious to him as they kiss; he ignores them despite the way he wants to _howl_. But there’s no blood left on his teeth, so he sticks to the walls and nothing more.

He keeps his eyes down but the ghost hues of the street lights blind him. It proves to be the one disadvantage of the night—the light, no matter how faint, never escapes him. It remains, in the corner of his eyes, even when he shuts them tight.

(When he awoke from his slumber, the light burned and burned until he wished for sleep again. It would not come.)

Ahead: The street turns darker and quiet and emptier.

He continues on, the pitter-patter of his paws echoing in the alleyway. Behind him, the couple continues to laugh in gasps of “I love you”.

 

iii.

  
In the past, memory guided him. He knew the world before and the world that came to be. No matter how the cities shifted, the populace migrated, and the times changed, whispers of the past remained. It guided him, as he wandered. He was never far from his former self and steps could be retraced again and again.

In truth, it taunted him.

What once was, lingered, in ruins and in bloodlines. So close he could touch it, sometimes, and it hurts. It hurts. But in this age, everything is new. He remembers nothing, he recognizes nothing. And its taste, the wind and more, reminds him, a bit, of bile. Clouding his throat, it’s better than a fist, it’s better than a knife but it’s no saving grace either. This world is not what he dreamed of.

The roads wind and twine, the buildings blur into bleak, black-brick hollowed statements of grandeur. Every night, then, became an exploration. A challenge of sorts. He traveled to and fro the park he’s come to occupy, in hopes of one day knowing this city as he once knew the entire world.

Tonight’s journey halts as he stops at a corner. He realizes, rather dryly, that he is lost again.

He looks to his left: A bar, ringing with neon signs and the sounds of debauchery and merriment from within. People scream and fight and crowd at the front doors, where a qunari stands steadfast, arms crossed.

(Different now—so different. Many things have remained but in different forms he has yet to fully grasp. That aches too.)

He looks to his right: Another long, dark street that is too quiet for his liking. Vagrants linger, in the dark corner. His eyes gleam yellow when they look over to him. They see a shadow, worse than them, and sink further into the dark.

(The Veil is gone, magic is dead—these demons are a new breed. Somehow, more pitiful. He can blame himself for that too.)

He huffs, a puff of hot air forming in front of him. He will have to sleep here tonight, or risk getting further lost in this damned city. He’s almost tempted but too many dogs walk the night and they do not take kindly to him, the invader. They smell the age on him.

He turns around, in search of a crevice or drain pipe to call home when a door bursts open. Bright, searing white lights violates the sanctity of the alley alongside shouts and the clatter of a bustling kitchen. Out comes a short woman, dragging a bag of garbage that was twice her size.

He tilts his head in half-curiosity, half-amusement as she struggles further. She manages to heave it over her shoulder and carries it towards a dumpster, before she shoves it inside. She has to stand on the tips of her toes to do so and the bite of memory hits him before he realizes.

The girl sighs, shoulders slumping, and dusts her hands off on the dirty apron she wears. She’s walking back into the kitchen when she finally notices him and, under the glaring white light, he sees her, properly.

The new world is inhabited by ghosts of the worst kind. He knows it. He saw them, first night he took this form and found them—(a dark man, well groomed and charming; a woman officer, stern and black haired, on guard; a teenage boy, less lost and more whole but smiling—all of them smiling, in different places, spread across the city, he gasped and he wished and he hated)—bright and happy and unknowing. What kind of magic this was, he did not know. And it is the first rule he learns—

That he, for once, knows nothing of anything anymore.

So he kept walking but now he is still, and frigid, and scared. Now, he felt like a man trapped in a wolf’s body rather than a god trapped in a man’s.

She is not so unlike what she once was. And yet.

And yet...

There is no bow, there is no armor. There is a girl, same age as she was when the world began to end, and nothing more. He sees no might hidden in a small, unassuming body. He sees nothing but a gentle smile coming to her lips and the way the light and dark play on either side of her face as she watches him watching her.

“Hello there,” she says. “Are you lost, little guy?”

  
iv.

  
He comes back to her. Every night, he comes back to her.

Nearing witching hour, he waits—knowing better but he cannot resist. He never could—outside the kitchen doors, hidden beneath the steps until her break.

It her routine for the night: She takes out the trash, walks back in to wash up, and returns with a plate of food.

She whistles for him but she needn’t bother; he steps into view, head and tail down, black fur shimmering, strangely clean.

She smiles, again, the way _she_ does—wide, all bright teeth, the apples of her cheek blossoming and dimples coming through—and bids him a hello, before sitting down and dropping the plate by his feet.

Still grinning from ear to ear, she rests her chin in her hands and watches him eat.

He cannot feel shame in being reduced to this. The animal life is comfortable, simple. There is no such thing as loving so much, you wished you had died a millennium ago or the want of a thing you never deserved in the first place. The animal eats, sleeps, and breathes ‘til the day it dies. So, he laps up the tender bits of pork and beef and wags his tail for her because it makes her laugh.

When he is done, he looks up at her, tail falling still when he finds that she is no longer smiling.

(When he first met her, stars shined in her eyes. By the end of it, all that was left was ashes upon ashes.)

She stares at him until something snaps her from her trance and the sadness fades but it weighs, heavy on her shoulders as she sighs.

“Well then, back to work then, huh boy?” she says.

He simply blinks at her. She huffs a dry laugh and shakes her head, smiling at herself.

Then, as she stands, she reaches her hand out, as if to pet him, but he flinches without realizing it, taking a few steps back.

Her smile dampens a bit more.

“Poor thing,” she says, softly. “Who hurt you?”

She turns her hand over and displays her open palm to him. A show of friendship, and he forgets, for a moment, of what he did before the end.

 

v.

  
He comes back to her. Every night, he comes back to her.

She grins and reaches her hand out to him, as she stands there, sin wrapped in skin, wrapped in fur.

And he goes, knowing better.

The sky is scarred; green blood flows out in droves and Thedas is no longer Thedas but more. And she is more, beneath his hands—gasping, back arching as he kisses the dip of her hips. His fingers trace the markings that he once thought branded her and trails them down to her lips, his thumb following the swell.

She kisses his hand and bites down, gently, to hold back another hoarse moan.

He chuckles, puffs of hot breath against her belly, and there is no force in the world, no calling nor duty, that would take him away from this, from the place between her hips.

He speaks elvish, pleads his mercy and tells her he loves her. She picks up pieces of the words and never asks him to explain because his body does it for him.

She kisses him at the base of his throat, and lays her hand over his heart. It beats, rapid, against her palm as she calls him by his true name.

Then he wakes, shivering, half beast and half man in the dead grass.

It is past dawn and the park grounds are silent. Frost lingers on the bare trees as birds awaken from their slumber and the winter blossoms begin to lift their heads towards the coming of the faint sun.

He gets onto his feet, lifts his head back alongside them, and breathes in deep.

The air no longer tastes like winter.

  
vi.

  
He lays his head in her lap, lulled into a near-sleep by the caress of her fingers through his fur and the idle rapture of the city.

He cannot help himself now. He is damned, he knows it, but she smiles at his familiar shadow every night he returns and that must be some consolation. For whom, he isn’t sure. But he doesn’t flinch when she touches him, doesn’t hesitate at the pettiness of himself anymore. He’s already lost; let him suffer a bit more.

Then—

“I think I’ll keep you,” she mummers.

His eyes crack open, yellow hollows in the dark. He looks at nothing but a cracked brick wall and peeling paint that looks too much like dried blood in this light. It unnerves him.

Her fingers do not stop their tender touch as she adds, in a soft, blasphemous tone, “Would you like that?”

Something he knows all too well twists inside of him and it takes all of him—the parts still untouched by the beast—to close his eyes again rather than flee.

The inquisitor once spoke of a future, long ago. Then, the world was burning and he set the fire she was born to quench. This one, this young woman, speaks of a collar, a name, a safe bed in a pretty but small apartment; an addition to her “odd family” of flower pots and curious friends.

She continues.

“I think a dog would do me some good.” She laughs again, gentle but tired. “Finally teach me some responsibility.”

He huffs and she giggles this time. “You think so too?”

She strokes the silky line of his back and in a fit of sweet, sweet vengeance, his mind brings him back to the first time he ever kissed her, ever held her.

“I think we’ll be very happy together. I always need another friend.”

He doesn’t open his eyes again.

 

*

  
The night after, for the first time in this new age, he takes the form of an elven man.

Only the larks bare witness to this change, head tilted to the side, chirping, innocent— to the shred of black fur, birth of skin. The shift, painful as it is, is quick.

He rises from the grass naked and cold due to the winter air. He heaves a heavy fog of breath and looks down at his fingers, all ten of them, all pale and unbruised.

The Dread Wolf is no longer the Dread Wolf, and he reclaims the name Solas without the pride or history or tragedy.

But nakedness does not suit him now, as he wonders idly of what she would like—the Lavellan hunter he once knew didn’t truly care for finery but still enjoyed it from time to time. Men of the new age dress differently now, and he wonders...before shaking his head. With what little of his magic he has left, he summons something acceptable in taste.

Then, he buttons his coat closed, fixes his gloves, and leaves the park and the city too. Cheerfully, the larks sing him goodbye.

  
vii.

  
It’s a good two years of wandering before he returns to the city again.

Kirkwall is still Kirkwall. Busy, oblivious, and dangerous but unlike before no one cares much for the Chantry here. It’s all business and politics now, quick transactions and scarce courtesies.

Like in rest of the world, qunari, elves, and dwarves walk freely as do any of foreign countries, but the prejudice remains. The first stranger to meet his eye as he steps off the Orlesian train turns her nose up at him and his pointed ears so he smiles back, threateningly.

This is no longer the age of humans, at least.

In reality, Solas is not sure why he’s back here, of all places. Thedas is not the center of the world anymore, and he’s explored as far as the ghosts of its borders go. Beyond that, he will not step. Empires are dead, people are still bitter, and it’s a wonderfully wide world and yet he returns.

He tells himself it’s only to re-familiarize himself, in the body of a man rather than a wolf, in lieu of fleeing two years ago.

And he does wander about—the day, and the night, is much kinder to him in this body than it was when he was a beast. For one, he remembers where he is going; he doesn’t need to look down anymore.

As it turns out, Kirkwall is no jewel of a city under the glare of daylight.

It is a bit old and gray but there’s a charm to it that the rest of the modern world doesn’t have. Grand, bronze statues of hawks watch over the citizens at nearly every corner of downtown-once-hightown, and the spire of the seat of power is now an elegant gleaming city hall, where good and better men sit. With no mages, no magic, there are no templars, no sin, and the city’s police are reputable. Good, if occasionally inept. They do not sneer at him, and one woman, with short black hair and a stern face, kindly stops her stride along a red-haired police captain to pass him directions.

She blinks strangely at him when he calls her Seeker, before he narrowly explains it’s a foreign custom—he apologizes and goes about his way, ears burning.

He has hope now, and it feels belittling, humbling, and far too human for an elven god. But, then again, the gods are dead and the People do not call themselves the People, or even Dalish. Solas doesn’t spurn himself for feeling as he does, little and poor and kind.

It does not wipe away his sins, either.

Before he left, he only truly knew central park and it was a dirty, dangerous place in the ghost of a district he vaguely remembers as the slums of Darktown. Now he actively seeks out any beauty a city has to offer for a bit of peace and respite before another weary journey. There’s no real point in it; he’ll leave as soon as the gnaw of displaced history becomes too great. But there’s no point in his journey either—he does things for the sake of things and he knows Mythal would laugh at him for his own idleness and self-pity, if she still lives, somewhere, somehow.

He tries not think of her, or the others.

In a single day, Kirkwall reveals herself to him. By dusk, he’s visited museums, galleries street markets, and anonymous restaurants for a drink he has no one to share with despite the busy hour and charming couples. Less a tourist and more a traveler, he doesn’t linger there either.

He tells himself that eating, sleeping, and walking alone does not bother him, but there’s a particular flaw of the modern world: The loneliness of living. He bared it better before but there were less people in the world then and far less sins to his name. He finds that Kirkwall thrives on companionship, in one way or another.

So he walks and walks, hands tucked into his coat pocket until the strangest of sights catches his eye.

A blemish of pure green slotted between the smoky homes of defunct workhouses turned apartment complexes. It is near winter, once again, and there is a certain bleakness to the day in general, but there, across the street, was a small patch of thriving nature.

Cleaner than the park, to boot.

It’s a community garden, built in the image of brick-houses surrounding the area. Through its chain fences, it looks relatively busy despite the season and time. He hesitates before realizing there’s no place he needs to be, no people he needs to see, and crosses the street.

Surprisingly, he doesn’t walk in on unseen.

An elven woman comes up to him, short, pale, with a Dalish-tilt to her voice and a sort of genuine kindness when she looks at him, curious. “Hello, you’re new here, aren’t you?”

He opens his mouth and finds his voice dead. He hasn’t spoken in a while so he clears his throat, and says, “Yes, I’m from...out of town, so to speak. Has this always been here?”

“This?” She frowns before her eyes widens and she jumps a little, with her next words. “Oh! You mean the garden? No, no, this used to be an apartment building but it got torn down out a year back. Now we have this little garden.”

“For leisure?”

“The produce goes to soup kitchens and half-way houses and orphanages. Mayor’s idea, but it’s not worth much really. But it’s nice, right?”

She smiles brightly—before shortly introducing herself as Merrill, “Just Merill, and you?”—and he nods, returning a dull smile of his own.

It is nice. They’ve created a small orchard for themselves, winter fruit budding and late fall veggies and berries still peaking here and there. It reminds him of Skyhold’s garden, if more lush and busier.

“Don’t worry, you’re allowed to browse, just don’t steal anything. Sera will catch you.”

His entire body straightens at the name and he’s about to ask her to point out that, just to be sure, but Merrill is called away and bids him goodbye.

He takes to looking around quietly as he can but the people here are friendly. Chatty, towards the new face. Most of them, elves too, and previous residents to the area before one reason or another forced them to relocate. Still, they return.

One old elven man says it’s the only spot of cleanliness in “the whole of this damned city”.

Another is just happy for a patch of dirt to grow her potatoes and parsnips.

A third tells him it’s good to give back, one way or another, while her wife smiles and simply calls it home—But all of them thankful for it even if it’s no longer their space. Now, it belongs to the upper class, the humans and better paid who haven’t taken kindly to the garden as of yet. They don’t seem bitter, as Solas might wish them to be, but he’s a stranger here, in more ways than one, so he doesn’t ask why.

He spent little time with the city elves, as he had known them, or the Dalish or those who were neither. Pride, for one, and a terrible sense of entitlement and bitterness for bygone-glory. Now, all of it, more insignificant and irrelevant than the meager produce they create here. At least they find some joy in it, he thinks.

He is more unlike them than he should be and it’s not the magic, or the memory, but shame.

He watches a little elf-girl present a bundle of winter flowers to an older woman, and he thinks of ragged clothes, near-starvation, in the hollow of a dead empire.

They don’t know it, they’ll never know it—and that’s the best part, and the worst, but he does, he always will. This wasn’t the world he intended. It should be better but they’ll never know it.

So he goes to flee, guilt clawing at him so greedily he couldn’t breathe—but there was another strange thing nestled in this sacred place.

She’s there, across the pathway made of gravel and rows of leafy greens, amongst the blossoms. Her back is turned to him but he’d know her anywhere, in any world.

It’s a punishment.

—But it’s been two years and a lifetime, and he wanted nothing more than to speak to her, with a voice rather than fur; to look at her, with gentle eyes rather than yellow; to touch her and be touched, with hands to hold her, if she’d allow it.

And...she looks different in the daylight—then, he realizes, unfamiliar. He doesn’t remember the last time he saw her without the glare of dark skies overheard or ash in the air.

She’s still brown-haired, still dark-skinned, but beautiful without blood on her face and he’s walking towards her as the ghosts of his brothers and sisters chide him.

He stops beside her and kneels. He tries to not meet her eyes so he reaches out and catches a tender leaf between his fingers.

“Where I’m from, the humans call this elfroot,” he says. The words, surprisingly, come easy. Or perhaps that’s not surprising at all.

She lets out a little snort. “Where I’m from, the humans call it a weed. You can find it anywhere, even in the city.”

“Why grow it then?”

“To keep the humans away, obviously.”

He laughs—some things don’t change, it seems.

She reaches out and gently nudge the stalk of the plant, and says, “I’m studying them, actually. Traditional herbs and their properties. I, for one, get all my veggies pre-packaged and pre-cooked.”

“So we have a budding botanist in our mists?”

“A hobbyist. Nothing more, nothing less.” He meets her eyes finally and she smiles, wide. “And you are?”

“Solas.”

“Well, Solas.” She licks her lips, tasting the words. Her smile twists into a delighted grin. “Most people call me Lavellan but you can call me Iona. Nice to meet you.”

  
viii.

  
In this small bit of green, she lives and breathes and laughs. He blinks, once, twice, and expects the memory of her to fade as she continues to go on about the garden, each little plant they nurtured since its opening. But no. She is there, she remains, and so does he.

She wipes the sweat from her brow, drops her arms to her side, and stands there, beneath the dying sun’s glare. He is speechless.

She has her smile, her laugh, her voice, and name but she is not the inquisitor, she is not the Dalish hunter of Clan Lavellan, she is not the woman who bore his mistake and lost her arm and life for it. She is twenty-four, poor but getting by. She works at a bar, not a restaurant, and loves botany, hates the cold, and has lost in ways alien to war. She’s the youngest of her family, and the second youngest of her friends—that title goes to a shy boy she mentions vaguely as Cole. (This hurts him too.)

But she’s lovely and bright and asks how long he’ll be in town.

“A while,” he says. “I suppose.”

“Good, then let me show you around. They leave out all the danger and wonder in the tourist brochures anyway.”

She’s lovely and bright and it doesn’t take long for him to realize she should never love him.

  
ix.

  
He nestles, slowly, into Kirkwall. It’s a two-sided city, filled with beauty and misery. Day and night and all that, but there’s a portion of twilight where he finds solitude. It’s a dim apex between the crude underbelly of the richest quarters and the poor, holding a section of artists who don’t mind an elf, a foreigner, a stranger who wants to stay a stranger.

At the community garden he comes to know and love, he visits her when he can and she is usually there, amongst the blossoms.

He regrets not staying away. He tries to hide himself from her, but that was always an impossible thing with the inquisitor. She has always been the curious kind, and looking straight at him, across a table at a homely dinner with a cup of Rivani coffee in her hands, talking and laughing—it was not something he could ever resist. Except when he needed to hurt her.

Solas does manage some airs of mysteries, though.

Her words, not his. She thinks he’s trying to be cute.

He goes into detail about his travels and then some, and for a “small town girl”, as she puts it, it thrills her to no end. He doesn’t speak of his family, because he has none, not anymore; he doesn’t speak of his friends because he’s not sure he can say he has any to begin with. She notices and asks, only to get nothing in return.

As compensation, he tells her a bit about his life in Kirkwall. It proves to be a mistake.

He keeps his means of income intentionally vague. “Artist” is a fair enough statement, really, but when he says so, she looks delighted and asks to see some of his work.

He flat out refuses and she looks taken aback—and he’s reminded of the first time he met her, the grime and ink spiraled across her face, the hint of glory, and her wide, clear eyes. Those eyes died a long time ago, and they stare at him now as he apologizes.

“I have nothing worth showing, I’m afraid.”

“Unless you have some sort of dolphin fetish, I’m sure that’s completely untrue.”

He can’t help but laugh and waves her off, changing the subject.

In reality, his hands are stained with something other than blood for once but there is a certain kind of shame he can’t avoid every time he paints.

He hasn’t forgotten the skill, but it feels estranged, like toying with wet clay that’ll never hold its form. He doesn’t want to show her anything but perfection, something worth smiling at. And as bright as she beams at the smallest of things, nothing he creates is of that kind.

His murals are daunting.

Splashes of red, drips of dark hues and more, and a full day spent at work, he colors the pretty white plastic streets of downtown gallerias with stories of bygone ages. The shadowed, smoky airs of industrial towers become dead forests and glittering blossoms, as central park’s playgrounds morph into a delight for the children. It is not perfectly legal, but he is not entirely disallowed from it either. Enough so, he eventually makes a show of it. Enough so, he begins to get paid for it.

He doesn’t need the money, not really, but he is not a dog anymore, or a wolf, or a god. He is allowed to pretend to be a simple painter in a city of disaster, sat upon a ladder as he recreates the green sky which his lover defeated and was defeated by.

Solas supposes it was only a matter of time for her to wander downtown on one of her off-days, but Kirkwall was a big city. He had hope.

The passing crowd below doesn’t bother him much these days; they take pictures, talk amongst themselves, and little else. He’s as much as part of the show as the art itself. He keeps his head up and continues to work on the walls caging the market place until dusk nears and he is done for the day.

He climbs down the step ladder easily enough, wipes his hands, and gathers his things only to turn around and find her there, no longer amongst the blossoms.

It’s summer now, or will be soon. Her hair is tied up high, little locks framing her face, and the straps of her tank top fall off to the side, leaving her collarbones even more exposed. She stands in front of the passing crowd, hands in her pocket, more casual than he’s ever known her.

He takes a breath and her lips quirk.

“When you said you painted for a living, I didn’t picture this.”

Her eyes go from him to the mural and stay there, analyzing. He’s both delighted and afraid as he asks, “Do you like it?”

She’s silent for a moment and he becomes increasingly more aware of the smear of red paint across his face .

“I do. It’s...dark.”

He wants to laugh but doesn’t; they were dark times, after all.

Then she frowns and she looks older than her years, a bow in hand, the brand of hell in the other, and the world turns asunder.

He blinks, once, twice, and it takes a bit for him realize she’s talking again, her eyes still on the mural.

“It reminds me of blood. Not in a dramatic sense, but—it’s sad, nonetheless.” Her gaze falls and his hands are shaking now, as she stares right at him. “Why did you hide this from me?”

“I don’t know,” he says.

Another lie but—

He remembers the taste of blood. He remembers the color. He’s washed endless fields with it and more, and now the walls of this city are reminiscent of it. So, he thinks, watching her watching him, if she has ever known blood in this life, if she has ever spilled it under the promise of a higher purpose, if she has ever wanted to be bathed in it as long as she remained righteous in the end.

Mouth parted, head heavy, love curls up inside him and it’s too late to run. She has him again.

“Lunch then?”

His eyes snap back into focus, her voice a sharp, cutting call. Her smile is gone but she doesn’t look worried. She looks patient, almost timid, and she’s close enough that he can almost smell her. Or perhaps she’s always been this close. He isn’t sure.

So he nods and lets her hand slip into his, bloodied paint be damned. It’s the first time he’s happy the world he knew is dead.

  
x.

  
The first time they kiss again, it’s snowing. Her lips are soft and he knows nothing but her.

The air was alive, tinged with the muffled bass of the bar, cigarette smoke, and the sweet scent of her perfume. It’s a debaucherous night in the city spent for once in the body of a man, not that of the wolf, and he shakes throughout.

He meets her friends—his too, in another life, and it’s like walking with his eyes bound shut. He’s not sure what to expect but what else is new?

Their names are still theirs but they carry themselves better, happier. Their plight in a past life is nothing like what it is now, the simple if heartbreaking hardships of the modern man and woman.

Blackwall was never Blackwall, and always Thom, with his graying tips and weary bartender look. Varric chats Solas up like they’ve been friends for years and Dorian insults his clothes, but likes him well enough once he bites back.

Vivienne does not but she approves, once dearest Iona tells her move of him in private. He only knows because he knows them, or once did.

Sera tolerates him and it’s good; it makes him laugh, hearty and high, and she thinks him mad before ordering a drink for him too. Bull, big and welcoming as ever, gives him a look over and asks him how well he can hold his liquor.

“Very well,” Solas says and regrets it soon after.

Cassandra, less clunky and awkward than she ever was, is sweet—he bites his tongue from calling her Seeker and she must recognize him, from before, but doesn’t bring it up. She is happier in this world; her brother never died and the Chantry has no sway over her.

Cole is Cole, and doesn’t care for the noise of the bar, but he cares for his friends and the company they keep. The veil does not exist but this spirit lives on still, content. It makes Solas smile.

But he knows nothing and the longer he remains, in this city, in this world, in this bar, the farther he feels from what he once was. Fen’Harel is dead; Solas is dying.

There is no beauty in it, just the drowning sensation of being amongst friends.

And she—she looks for him still, even when she is caught up with something else. It’s her night off but she’s popular here. She’s known by name, and even as Sera drags her away, arm thrown over her shoulder, her eyes stray, looking for him. He meets them and tries to smile back at her but it falls. She notices.

He feels wrung-out, twisted dry so he’s nothing more than a mess of something that might’ve resembled someone great once upon a time. All of it, dizzying. The crowd, the music, the drinks. His body, no matter how similar it is to what it once was, always feel tight. Always.

When push comes to shove, he slips away. The party has only started to pick up, but he’s never been one for crowds anyway.

Into the smoky night air he can no longer taste, he takes a moment to gather himself. Around him, drunken fools and frisky couples wander around the alleyways and streets. He half-smiles at this; innocence at its best but he still feels bitter as it begins to snow.

The fresh air, if one can only call it that, helps some but there is a panic in his chest he’s all to familiar with. It won’t settle so he rather leave, as impolite as it might seem.

She’ll understand. If she doesn’t, then perhaps it’s for the better.

He begins to walk away when he hears his name.

“Solas?”

He turns. Mythal save him, he turns. She’s there, like always, looking so small and hurt he think he might break.

“Where are you going?”

“I...” He swallows, mouth suddenly dry. “Home.”

Her frown deepens, almost furious. “You don’t look so good.”

He doesn’t say anything in reply, only drops his gaze and shuffles his worn, leather boots.

So, she takes a step closer. “In fact, you haven’t been looking good all night.”

“I’m fine,” is his typical reply. He gives it now and she scoffs, now standing right in front of him.

She’s more than a head shorter than him, but she might as well be a giant, glaring the way she does.

“You always say that. I get it; everyone wants to be fine. But Solas--” She cuts herself off with a sigh and inches a little closer, her heat intoxicating. “I like you. Very much.”

He doesn’t speak. He can’t. He’s far from surprised, but he’s gone stiff, the panic inside him rising.

She goes on as her fingers reach out, tips along the flat of his palm. She can’t meet his eye anymore as a snowflake catches on her heavy, dark lashes.

“And I want you to stay. In fact, I want a lot of things, especially for you to talk to me. I want you to stop hiding. I want—”

This time, he kisses her first.

Ducking down, catching her lips and she gasps against his mouth, quiet and for his ears only as his hand cups her cheek. She grips onto the lapels of his coat and kisses him back, tender but determined.

When he pulls away, her mouth is stained pink and her eyes are heavy, then fluttering open, shocked.

She breathes heavily. “Why did you stop?”

A part of him wants to laugh. It’s exactly the sort of thing she would say, but the only thing he can do is lean closer and rest his forehead against hers. He grips the hand now resting on his chest and squeezes, gently.

“You don’t know what you’re asking for.”

“Don’t I?”

His eyes widen for a quarter of a second before she’s kissing him again and there’s nothing left to be said about fear tonight.

  
xi.

  
Carefully, he undoes the ties of her dress but stops, midway.

“What is it?”

He swallows and tries not to stare at the curve of her neck, her bare shoulder as she turns her head to look at him.

He’s behind her, grasping the draw string that keeps her flimsy little dress together. She’s wearing nothing underneath.

His throat feels tight but he manages to ask, “Are you sure?”

In this moment, he can analyze everything—every stray hair resting along her temple, the lashes of her eyes, her freckles and childhood scars, the cusp of her jaw and the bow of her lips. She was never one to cover herself up with cosmetics but this is something else entirely, bare-faced and oh so close.

She gives him a dry look.

“Solas. Undress me.”

He represses a shiver and more, and tugs. Her dress goes limp, she spreads her arms, and it falls smoothly into a lilac puddle at her feet.

She turns, grinning all the while, and he takes a long, shaky breath before he gathers his pencil and sketchbook.

“Stay still please.”

“For you? Anything.”

  
xii.

  
She feeds him sticky sweet fruit, pomegranate juice ruining down her wrist. He kisses her fingers, blushes of red getting on his cheeks, his lips. Then he kisses her lips and drinks down what is left of the guilt inside him.

She giggles when he ducks down to peck her neck, again and again, until she starts to struggle and gasp. Her—their friends make a face at the rare moment of public affection. Sera gags loudly before she is distracted by the frisbee hitting her square in the face. Iona laughs louder, caught in Solas’ arms as Dorian attempts to flee and Varric starts placing bets.

One of the others tsks, Cassandra sighs, but Solas is deaf to it. The park is loud but beautiful in the daylight too. Green, bright, with families not so different from their own running about.

There’s no ring on her finger yet but he thinks about it, noticing the red lining of her fingers as she cups his cheek and scrunches her face at him for no reason except to make him laugh.

  
xiii.

  
There is nothing you can be prepared for, or so he tells her as she heaves and heaves and heaves until there is nothing in her stomach to spit out.

Shoulder blades are sharp, almost trying to break free of her skin the same way she is trying to expel the toxic of the day. Hunched over the toilet bowl and weeping, she’s not listening to him anymore. She’s crying too much. Nothing he says is of any comfort, and he would call it bitter irony, but this time he stays silent.

He rubs her back and holds her hair until her body is too tired for anymore of her grief.

When all is said and done, they’re lying against the bathtub and she’s clinging to him tight. An accident, she says, before correcting herself. A fight.

Kirkwall is not a safe place. It never was, especially for the elves, the qunari, and anyone too different to walk safely at night. She is unharmed, thankfully, but this isn’t what plagues her.

Her knuckles are bruised, there is blood on her shirt that isn’t hers, and she smells like beer and vomit. All of it, she is innocent of.

She sighs.

“I was scared.”

His hand squeezes her arm. It feels paper thin. “I know.”

This time, he can almost feel her bones pierce through and into him as she shakes with her sigh.

“Then I was angry.”

“I am too.”

He wasn’t there—and he didn’t need to be, but waking up at three in the morning to a mad pounding on his door set his heart in his throat and his hands into a fist he can’t seem to loosen.

“They called me—things. They were drunk and loud and so, so human. I can handle myself, Sera can handle herself, but—” She cuts herself off, sniffling, and hugs her face against his tear-stained shirt. He waits until she can go on. “I don’t think I ever told you this but Sera works at a shelter for elven kids. You know, those who have no where to go or need a place to sleep for the night. A lot of them work, even though that too is illegal for minors but the fucking city doesn’t care, as long as they have people to clean their rooms or wipes their tables or—or warm their beds.”

He knows. As kinder as this world is, it is just as cruel too.

She goes on, barely. “Sometimes I help Sera out. Sometimes we go and pick them up, after both of us get off work. A lot of these kids work in our area, so we take them over to the shelter. Make sure they get there before lights out, you know? Outside is not the best place to be when you’re only fifteen, especially at night.”

Botanist, bartender, and brave-hearted girl. If she had her bow, the inquisitor might rise again.

The thought makes his stomach twist.

“They were kids. They don’t deserve to hear that. But they’re teenagers too, just stupid kids. Mags lashed out; Fenris tried to stop him but it was tits up from there. Maker, Solas—”

She takes in a deep breath and looks into his eyes. She is no longer weeping but there’s something else in her eyes he knows far too well.

“Solas, I could’ve killed one of them. I couldn’t stop.”

“But you did.”

She goes quiet.

“But I did.”

She looks away, to her bruised knuckles and stares for a long time. He reaches out then, and brings them to his lips.

He means to say, let your rage know calm, but she manages all that herself.

There is nothing more to say and she gets up, strips, steps into his shower and washes off the blood and the vomit and the beer. Then, she asks if she can stay the night.

He tells her she can stay forever and means it.

  
xiv.

  
She talks about hopes and dreams the way people talk about the weather. It’s just small talk on the surface but she’s struggling to get at what she really wants to say.

“I want to save the world.”

Oh but of course.

Solas tries to keep his face straight, to his credit.

Then she blushes, stumbles, and lets him get back to his mural. It’s a good twenty minutes before she says anything again.

“Kirkwall is a dirty, broken place but it’s beautiful too. Look at what you’re doing. I want to do something that makes people stop and stare and think.”

“I’m only painting, Iona.”

“You’re making something beautiful.”

He huffs but doesn’t argue with her on that. This isn’t about him.

“And so?” he says.

She gives herself another moment before she replies, “And so...I think I should go back to school. Get a degree in something.”

“You already have one.”

She screws her face up with confusion before he adds, “Don’t look at me like that. You know far too much about herbs and plants and natural remedies to call it a hobby anymore.”

“There’s no money in that.”

“There’s no money in what I’m doing now but here I am.”

She becomes quiet again and he knows she knows he’s right. Or at least, right enough. Soul-searching is a far simpler grievance for her than it was for him, at least.

Still, it’s a good start.

  
xv.

  
Lately, they make love with the windows open. The AC has been broken since before summer began and sweat rolls down his back, biting at his scalp but it doesn’t sway him from kissing, from touching, from thrusting slow and hard. They can hear the street down below, but it’s just noise at this point—a distant laugh as she cries out, a yell as Solas whispers. A crash, a giggle, as he sinks in, teeth and all, and she can’t stop shaking.

It feels sinful; the brownstone buildings echo with the Chantry’s call to prayer, its sisters lavishing the world with its bells.

He dips down, licking a line along her belly, and she moans as the Maker’s name is praised.

Yes, this is might be a sin but how could it be, in such a pretty place? Her apartment distinctively smells of fine wine, soap, flowers, and sex, with white on floral wallpaper and the Chantry emblem seared into the mantelpiece of a defunct fireplace. Potted plants litter the open windowsill behind the bed, overgrown but flourishing, and the fan overhead spins lazily down on them as he humps and grinds and thrusts.

It is the picture perfect home of a messy girl and her creaky bed. Even her sheets are littered with innocent blossoms, defiled as she falls, arches, and calls him something filthy. In response, he spreads her legs wider, digs his fingers deeper, and holds back a groan that feels too much like a howl.

Half-whispered pleas between the whines and moans of the bed springs and he only laughs, breathless, and pulls her close.

In this world, and the old, she loved this position best:

Her back pressed to his chest, sat in his lap as he rocks, deeper and deeper, and his arms clutch around her middle, worshiping her chest, and sometimes—only sometimes—a hand around her throat.

Once she said—

“I can feel you completely like this.”

She whimpers and he pauses for a fraction of a second.

Skyhold gleams into focus then is gone and he’s moving again, kissing her neck all over with an apology he’s given a hundred times before.

There are nail scratchings along her belly, his back, and on both pairs of hips, rocking, rocking, rocking until she speaks her native tongue and he’s spinning out of control, cruel and gentle all at once.

For the moment, he is done. She’s half asleep on top of him, still pulsing around him, and he wants to move her but can’t quite bring himself to be apart, not just yet.

She hums sleepily as he starts to play with her hair, a guise to get it out of his face, when she tells him she loves him.

He goes still.

“What was that?” he’s afraid to say but does.

Her breathing stops and he half-hopes this is a dream, she’s a desire demon, and there’s nothing more to this—but the only demons left are the ones in his head.

She lifts herself up, braced on her elbows, and doesn’t waver as she breathes in, out, and opens her mouth.

“I love you.”

In this world he didn’t say it first. He’s surprised. Then he’s laughing, mad and stupid, and doesn’t stop even as he kisses her mouth, her breasts, her belly. In between each fit of undeserving glee he feels, he repeats the words to her over and over again until they lose their voice to each other.

Fen’Harel is truly dead.

  
xvi.

  
“I don’t know you.”

She says this with no malice, just simple honesty.

She’s lying naked on his bed, on her stomach with her chin resting in her palms, legs swinging behind her.

He lives in a rickety boarding house with questionable patrons. He minds his own business, and so do they, but there is little to brag about at the end of the day. It’s a boring beige room, with a metal-headboard bed meant for one and paint supplies, everywhere. In reality, he felt ashamed to bring her here, despite more than a year together. In the end, she laughed at him for being so silly and pushed him onto the bed.

Now, he’s sat on the sofa chair in the corner of the tiny room, naked too, as he sketches her figure with coal.

He doesn’t pause his scribbles.

“No?”

“No.”

She rolls over onto her back and he shoots her a look before sighing and starting a new sketch.

She sighs and goes on. “You know me. You know every inch of me. Literally. But...”

He smiles and outlines the curves of her breasts. “But?”

Her hand reaches out, fingers spread apart over the figure of him. “But you’re so distant, so far away, always.” His pencil stills. “I don’t mind it but some days, I do.”

After a long, painfully quiet moment, he looks away from his sketch and to her, through the gapes of her fingers as she stares at him. Then, she drops her hand.

“Or perhaps I’m just being poetic. Sex does that, apparently,” she admits, with a huff.

A pause, as he watches her and thinks. Then, he sets his pencil and sketchbook down and stands, slowly drawing towards her so he can kneel by the bed, the rough, weathered carpet scratching his knees once he does.

He hovers over her with a gentle expression as he traces the outline of her face. Far from perfect and yet—

“I’m here now, aren’t I’?”

She breathes out, in, and stops his fingers with a hand over his. “Are you?”

The gentleness fades, bittersweet, and it has nothing to do with her. He cannot go back. He can never go back. If he could, what would he be going back to? Ash and ruin, built on the corpses of others far too young to die.

Magic is dead, he tells himself, the gods are dead. But she is not, with her half parted lips and dark, freckled skin and a rage, untapped.

“Yes.”

“And you’re not going anywhere?”

He leans closer, ‘til he’s inches away from her lips.

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

He kisses her and that says enough.

  
xvii.

  
He knew it was truly the end when she hissed and called him by his true name, sword in the hand he didn’t steal away. She could no longer fight with a bow, so a blade did well and it was rather fitting, too

He knew it was truly the end when she gathered him in his arms, limp and dying, and told him she would always love him even as the world tore itself apart one last time.

And he knows it is the end now, watching her sleep and there is no space between them, only lavender sheets and the heat of her naked back.

There is a scar there, the width of a broadsword, between her third and second rib.  
  
He knows how it got there. He knows because he was the one to strike her down before she grasped a fray arrow and struck his neck. The hero, this time, did not kill the villain at all. It was his lover, blighted wife, and heartbroken friend as he choked on his own blood and the world, with him.

At daybreak, he lays his head down and prays, this time, he won’t sleep for a thousand years.

 

 

fin.

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> [ open for requests!](tenderthings.tumblr.com)
> 
>  
> 
> edit: wow! there's been a lot of kudos/hits lately and i just wanted to thank you all so much for reading! this is absolutely one of my favorite stories so i'm glad it's being so well-received!


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